Denial of the science of climate change.

This is part 2 of addressing climate action denial.   For part 1 see here.

If one’s intent is to stop or hinder action on climate, denying that the problem exists is one obvious way of doing this. Thus the science contrarian may hope to:-

• ·         Rationalize or attempt to justify ones inaction that is based on some other reason for denying the need for action,

Alternatively or additionally to:-

• ·         Persuade others and society to rationalize in this way.

Typically this contrarian is not really interested in the science and if you follow their reasoning you are likely to see that it is quite irrational. This form of denial generally comes from members of the general public and not from climate experts. They are also likely to hold another irrational viewpoint that I will explain in the next post concerning the proposal of using alternatives to fossil fuels for our energy supplies. These issues are independent of each other. For example whether or not alternative energies can replace fossil fuels has no bearing on whether or not the enhanced greenhouse effect due to the use of land and fossil fuel consumption is causing global warming. The contrarian holding both of these viewpoints points to the likelihood that there are other underlying reasons for their denial of the science.

The physics of the greenhouse effect is based on established physics that is used in many many fields of science, for example in the use of spectroscopy that the contrarian doesn’t question or are possibly unaware of. The question that can’t be answered precisely is how fast the changes and impacts of climate change will be. There is no real scientific opposition to these general views and for this reason the contrarian attempting to discredit the science will end up having to present viewpoints that are likely mutually exclusive. (A few examples are given here). Equally you may find groups of contrarians sharing the same platform but with opposing arguments that agree only to the point that they disagree with the current knowledge on climate science. Clearly it is not the science that they agree on.

Once you realize that the contrarian is able to hold mutually exclusive arguments simultaneously and their position is based on other political or economic positions then the next step is to realize that you are extremely unlikely to be able to change their viewpoints using scientific reasoning alone on the factors causing climate change today.

There are many myths on climate science that have been debunked but the perpetrators are not deterred and seem to cycle round them in differing degrees of sophistication. Here is an excellent site that explains nearly every myth that you may come across.

http://skepticalscience.com/argument.php

And also an online course (MOOC) that deals with some of these issues...Making Sense of Climate Science Denial

https://www.edx.org/course/making-sense-climate-science-denial-uqx-denial101x-0

These links provide good examples that serve the purpose of:-

·         Increasing awareness of climate change and the associated impacts.

·         Providing evidence of human induced climate change and addressing the myths associated with denial of the science.

·         Understanding some of the psychology associated with this type of denial.

Important as it is to continually confront this out spoken denial it is equally important that we must deal with other forms of denial that prevent effective decarbonisation.

Next: - Denial that existing technological solutions to startdecarbonisation of our energy can be effective.